Note 150 — Chapter XI

I take pleasure in availing myself of the privilege which Professor W. A. Scott, of the University of Wisconsin, accords me, of quoting him to the effect that "such a conception of value [a value concept which makes the value of a commodity a quantity, socially valid, regardless of the individual holder of the coin or the commodity, and regardless of the particular exchange ratio into which the value quantity enters as a term] is absolutely essential to the working-out of economic problems." Professor Scott has been driven to this conclusion in the course of his studies in the theory of money. Dean Kinley expresses a somewhat similar view in his Money, p. 62. It is, of course, in the theory of money that the need for such a concept makes itself most acutely felt. But the same view is expressed by Professor T. S. Adams, from the standpoint of the statistician. See his article, "Index Numbers and the Standard of Value," Jour. of Pol. Econ., vol. x, 1901-02, pp. 11 and 18-19.